From 4 to 8 May 2026, the AFI–Habitat Joint Task Force on Inclusive Capacity for Housing Finance conducted a mission to Lusaka.

The mission was conducted under the AFI–Habitat for Humanity partnership, which works to create enabling policies for inclusive, affordable, sustainable housing finance. The Task Force included representatives from Central Bank of Egypt, State Bank of Pakistan, Bank of Tanzania and Central Bank of Suriname, and from Habitat for Humanity’s Terwilliger Center for Innovation in Shelter.

The Task Force consulted with stakeholders from government, regulators, the private sector, microfinance providers and development finance institutions. Discussions covered the design of liquidity instruments and concessional anchor capital, credit enhancement mechanisms, prudential treatment of housing loans, land and collateral reform, foreclosure frameworks, underwriting of informal incomes, and the integration of housing into Zambia’s green finance taxonomy.

“The Bank of Zambia has already made substantive progress on housing finance reform, including its work to establish a Mortgage Refinance Company,” said Dieter De Smet, Project Lead of the AFI–Habitat partnership. “The mission identified a coordinated reform agenda that will require action not only by the Bank of Zambia but by partner ministries, the legal and regulatory community, and the financial sector itself. Housing finance reform of this kind cannot be carried by central banks alone.”

In the coming weeks, the Task Force will deliver a full report to the Bank of Zambia. This will contain a diagnostic of binding constraints across the regulatory, supply-side, demand-side and coordination domains, a reform priority matrix, and a sequencing framework aligned with the Bank of Zambia’s Strategic Plan.